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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Creature of the Night by Kate Thompson

Bobby is a rebellious teen. His (probably abusive) angry single mom and his half brother Dennis and he have moved to a house a couple hours outside of Dublin Ireland to escape Bobby's supposed friends for whom he steals cars and with whom he smokes weed and tries various drugs. They are also trying to escape bill collection agencies. The cottage has been unoccupied for quite some time. There are rumors of murders and the like. This is Ireland where fairies, leprechauns and the like abound so the wee folk are also suspected in two known disappearances. Thus the enticing title Creature of the Night. A wee woman dressed in a plaid flannel shirt like that worn in the picture of one of the missing persons visits Dennis, Bobby's brother during the night. She has a like of small bowls of milk, chocolates, pink/yellow cakes. At least with Dennis she is not at all frightening and really only a minor part of the total story. What is going on with Dennis, the mother and the wee woman are merely backdrop for the story of Bobby's coming of age. In spite of himself he has grown to enjoy working on the neighboring farm. He is required to do this to pay for an auto he stole and ultimately destroyed. He seems to believe he has to maintain his bad boy image though. So every time things start going better he goes of on a drinking spree with stolen money. I must say I wearied of descriptions of puking and hangovers. If his mother would just get wise things would go better. Right at the end the body of one of the missing persons is found, an investigation is underway, Bobby's mom moves back to Dublin and Bobby is still at loose ends. Fast forward 14 years to the epilogue and things are more or less resolved, but I don't think so. I think this was a cop out for not properly ending the book. I've no idea at the end how Bobby has grown or not, or how mom and other son are faring or if the new owners of the cottage are visited by the wee woman or, or... The nod to horror is just a hook to get people to buy and possibly read a mediocre book. This author has written better books, unfortunately many people who know her other work will purchase this expecting more of the same quality.JDW5/21